Standing on a college football sideline at Florida Atlantic University, Florida Highway Patrol trooper Craig Gaines quickly took a few steps back as two players barreled toward him.
Gaines was working a familiar assignment as a security guard for Florida A&M University’s head football coach, James Colzie III, when players from both teams started moving in his direction during the September 6 game.
In a split second, one player rolled out of bounds, slamming into Gaines’ leg, breaking it. The impact forced Gaines' arms into the air as his body crashed to the ground.
Game footage captured Gaines quickly standing back on his feet, despite the fractured bone.
Less than two weeks later, he was dead.
“I had been calling him every day to assess ... how he was doing,” said Johnnie Niles, Gaines’ mother. “He would say, ‘Well mom, I’m doing okay except for at night, I have these spasms in my leg, and it’s very painful.’”
According to an autopsy, Gaines died of a “pulmonary embolism” due to “deep venous thromboses” with the leg fracture listed as a contributing factor.
A medical examiner ruled his death an accident. The Florida Highway Patrol said he passed away "from injuries sustained in the line of duty.”
“In his mind, the safety issue was protecting the coach ... but never thinking that anything would actually happen to him,” Niles said.
Niles said Gaines was a Navy veteran who loved being a police officer, especially his assignment working with the FAMU football team.
“Most of all, he enjoyed being around the young men – the team players,” she said.“I’m sure he probably got into conversations with them about one thing or the other and probably shared ... life experiences with them that he had gone through ... he loved FAMU.”
Scripps News review of college collisions
Scripps News started examining sideline collisions at college football games after conducting a similar review of NFL games in early 2025.
An exclusive analysis of 284 NFL games found nearly 90 people — including coaches, team staff, photographers and others — had been knocked off their feet during sideline collisions last season. Some suffered broken bones or serious injuries that drew blood.
Scripps News could not replicate a full-season analysis of every college game because there are significantly more college teams and games. Also, replays of complete game broadcasts are not always available. Instead, Scripps News selected 30 televised college games to review from the weekof October 4.
An analysis found at least 20 people — including referees, staff, and players — had been knocked off their feet on the sidelines of games during that period.
In one case, ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe and NFL Hall of Fame player Michael Irvin were knocked down during the same sideline hit. Following the incident, the pair laughed it off on air.
In another incident, a sideline official at the University of Alabama said he broke his wrist and suffered a concussion.
Broken wrist and concussion
“I just kept backing up, and I bumped into something or somebody,” said Kirby Michaels, an SEC sideline official whose job is to document penalty flags at Alabama games.
Michaels said he was standing in an area where he was permitted to be, but he had gotten in front of the line of scrimmage.
“I couldn’t go nowhere, and he kept coming, so I put my hands up to protect my kidney,” he said.
Michaels was protecting his kidney because he said he received a kidney transplant in June.
“The first couple of minutes after (the hit) happened, I’m sitting there trying to assess ... am I hurt in my stomach or my kidney area? Am I hurting? Am I hurting where my scar is at?” he said. “I didn’t feel a bit of pain there at all, and then I got to thinking, well, I’ve got an adrenaline rush.”
Michaels said his kidney was unharmed, but his wrist snapped when he tried to protect his body from the impact. He said he also hit his head.
“I’m laying on the ground, and my head is spinning,” he said. “I’m like, ‘This is not good.’”
He was hauled off in a neck brace that day, but he has not been afraid to return to the sideline.
He says sideline collisions are inevitable.
“I think it is part of the game,” said Michaels. “You have news reporters. You have camera people. You have all kinds of people that’s there, filming a game,” he said. “Getting hit and having hard contact on the sidelines from players coming out of bounds has become part of the game. You don’t want to be a part of it, but it has become a part (of it).”
Michaels said he loves being on the sideline, but he would understand if his position was one day moved to an area away from the field for safety reasons.
“Probably my job could be done from the press box. I mean, I wouldn’t have to be on the sideline,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. I love being down there, and I love being part of the atmosphere, but if I was to move up there to keep doing the same work, I’d do it.”
The rules
NCAA football rules require boundaries called limit lines to be drawn 12 feet outside the sidelines and endlines “except in stadiums where total field surface does not permit,” and no person outside the team area shall be inside the limit lines.”
Meanwhile, only 50 staff and personnel (excluding medics and squad members) are allowed in a designated “team area.”
Individual schools and conferences also have the power to create their own policies beyond the NCAA’s rules or to recommend changes to the NCAA.
“With more awareness, it’s definitely something I’ve thought about more,” said Kia’i Keone, a quarterback for the University of Northern Colorado. He said he started considering sideline safety after Scripps News reached out to him about this story.
“It seems like this is something that we should maybe talk about or think about moving forward,” he said.
Keone is a new member of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Oversight Committee, a group that has authority to consider new rules that could impact safety.
“It’s important because we want to play the game with as limited injuries as possible and whether people (are) playing or people (are) spectating – we want to have a safe game,” he said.
Keone said he witnessed a woman on the sidelines at one of UNC’s games knocked down early in the season.
“It was just another one of those plays where somebody was running off, and she tried to move and it was too late,” he said. “She’s a trouper.”
He acknowledged, however, that sideline collisions also may be unavoidable. “I’d say it’s part of the game,” he said. “But I feel like that’s not a good attitude. Like, we can always get better at things,” Keone said.
Scripps News exclusive survey
Scripps News sent surveys inquiring about awareness of and improvements to sideline safety to 23 NCAA conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision and the Football Championship Subdivision, not including independent schools.
Fewer than half of the conferences responded by our deadline, but several indicated sideline safety would be considered further or reviewed in the future.
“Safety is a shared responsibility across the league. Each institution develops a stadium and sideline security plan tailored to its venue and resources, ensuring that credentialing, access control, and prohibited item policies are enforced,” said Javan Hedlund of the Mountain West Conference. “Game management and stadium security personnel work diligently to uphold NCAA and institutional guidelines during every football game.”
Hedlund said the Mountain West conference continually reviews protocols for safety, even extending the required limit line by three feet “to support safe and efficient movement for broadcast personnel.”
A representative from the Big Sky Conference said he did not believe the conference tracked sideline injuries resulting from collisions, but said the conference would “use any data/new information in consideration for the future decisions on that.”
A representative from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference said that “the visibility of this issue will make this a topic of discussion in the near future,” but the conference’s current policy does not address sideline safety.
Conference USA indicated it does not maintain a central database of sideline injuries, but the conference “continuously works to promote a safe environment on the sidelines through existing operational standards.”
A representative from the American Conference told Scripps News that “the conference and its schools place the highest priority on the health and safety of student-athletes, coaches, staff, and all event participants” and “will continue to work together to maintain a safe and positive game-day environment.”
Other collisions go viral
In November, a social media post featuring video of a Miami wide receiver colliding with a woman during the team’s game at Virginia Tech racked up 5 million views. The video showed the woman coming perilously close to hitting a metal railing but popping back up with the assistance of the Miami player, Malachi Toney.
Student media said the journalist shown being hit in the video had been injured earlier in the season after being hit by a player in a separate incident.
Incidents in the NFL have also caught lots of attention this season. This month a security guard with his back turned to the field went down after a hard collision with Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Michael Pittman, Jr.
Pittman later took to social media to ask about the man’s condition, later saying he received an update that the man was “doing good.”
Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn finished a September game with a bloodied nose after a collision with a player.
Earlier that month, former Raiders CEO Amy Trask posted her feelings about sideline safety in the NFL on X. “The sidelines must be kept clearer, they are too crowded,” she wrote. “It is not safe for players and others.”
“Players and coaches are not the only individuals on the sideline during the game... stadium security, camera operators, first responders, photographers and others are also on the sideline and it is thus in the best interest not only of the league, the teams and the stadiums to make the sidelines as safe as possible, but in the best interest of all entities with personnel on the sidelines,” Trask, now a football analyst for CBS, recently told Scripps News.
Trask told Scripps News she feels the same about college football.
Call for changes after trooper’s death
Scripps News reached out repeatedly to Florida Highway Patrol to learn more about the role FHP plays on football sidelines. However, they did not provide responses to any of our questions for this story.
Last year, an FHP auxiliary trooperbroke his ankle during a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game when a player hit him from behind near the end zone.
“I don’t think anybody under any circumstances would actually think that a person would be injured on the sideline, but you have to realize too that in the back of your head, anything can happen at any place,” said Johnnie Niles, Craig Gaines’ mother. “We stay prayed up.”
When it comes to safety, Niles says there’s “definitely room for improvement.”
